US:President Bush will hold three days of meetings with senior advisers next week to devise a new strategy for Iraq following this week's report by the Iraq Study Group.
Mr Bush said yesterday that he would consider ideas from congressional leaders as well as the outcome of internal reviews by the Pentagon and the state department.
Speaking after a meeting with leaders from both parties, the president acknowledged the need for "a new way forward" in Iraq. Democratic senator Richard Durbin said the president was not expected to endorse all 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group but he said any new strategy should be in line with the report's main thrust.
"We have got to start moving American troops, redeploying them out of Iraq and start bringing them home. And second, we're not going to ask the Iraqis for permission.
"In fact, we're going to let them know we hold them to standards of performance in terms of making their country safer, their government stronger and securing their own future. And finally, that we open up a new line of diplomacy in the Mid-East," Mr Durbin said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow sought yesterday to dispel the impression that Mr Bush was cool towards the Iraq Study Group report. However, Mr Snow acknowledged that it was only one of a number of plans Mr Bush was considering. Mr Snow said that one of the report's most controversial ideas, a call for direct US engagement with Iran and Syria, may not be as revolutionary as some think.
"Zal Khalilzad, when he was ambassador to Afghanistan, had talked to the Iranians about border issues. Colin Powell had been in a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in which there were Iranians in attendance in 2004. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, has been in meetings with Iranians with regard to the Iraq compact. It is not clear whether that does or does not meet the conditions, the notion of direct engagement," he said.
The president has ruled out direct talks with Iran until it suspends its uranium enrichment programme but Mr Snow suggested yesterday that the White House regarded the nuclear issue as distinct from that of Iraq. "It is important that the Iranians understand that they need to be playing a constructive role not merely in Iraq, but also in the larger Middle East; and, furthermore, that it is not going to be possible, it is not acceptable to use good behaviour in Iraq as a bargaining chip on a potential nuclear programme that could destabilise the region and potentially the entire world," he said. Outgoing defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday called for patience in Iraq, saying it would be a "terrible mistake" for the US to leave now.